LITMIR.BIZ

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lights until it pulled to a stop next to two other police cars and an ambulance just a block and a half away from where I lived. “Something pretty major must be going on.”

      “I’ll say.” But Anatoly wasn’t looking at the police cars.

      When the taxi finally slowed to a stop, I literally threw some money at the driver and leaped out of the car with such velocity that I needed to grab hold of a lamppost to steady myself. Unfortunately Anatoly followed me out. The driver screeched away. He probably wanted as much distance from me as possible before I could think twice about giving him a twenty for an eleven-dollar fare. In truth the extra nine dollars would have been money well spent if Anatoly had just stayed in the car. I have never been very good with willpower. Recently I had resolved to limit my chocolate intake to one piece per week. It took me exactly a half-hour to break that resolution. And Anatoly was looking a lot tastier than your average chocolate bar.

      “Shouldn’t you have stayed in the cab until he got to your place?”

      “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask to come up.”

      Damn.

      “I just live two and a half blocks up, so I figured I’d walk. However, I was going to ask you what you’re doing this Saturday night.”

      Uh-oh, he wanted to go on a date. It was one thing to fantasize about sleeping with him, it was a whole other thing to plan to spend several hours talking to him. “I have a prior engagement.”

      “Saturday afternoon, then. I’ve been here for a little over three months but I’m still not all that familiar with the city. You could give me a tour. Show me where all the good coffee shops are.”

      “That’s a pretty long tour.”

      “Well then, just show me the Starbucks.”

      “That doesn’t shorten it much.”

      He moved in a little. “I don’t bite.”

      A little biting might not be such a bad thing. I took one more look at his hands. “Saturday at noon. You can pick me up here.” I dug into my purse and wrote my number on an old business card. “Good night, Anatoly.”

      “Good night, Sophie.” He slipped the card into his back pocket and proceeded up the street.

      I watched until he had turned the corner. “Wow, he’s even got a cute butt,” I murmured aloud. I looked to my right where there were still rescue vehicles congregated. The excitement seemed to be around a little garage located on the first floor of an Edwardian apartment building. The dark and the distance made it impossible to see much. The paramedics were loading someone into the back of the ambulance. Was it a body bag? I instantly felt the alcohol I’d drunk begin to lose its grip. I was aching to get a closer look, but it was doubtful that the police would view my credentials as a novelist as enough to let me dig around a crime scene. I wrinkled my nose and went up to my apartment.

      “Hey, Mr. Katz, you haven’t been killing the neighbors again, have you?” Mr. Katz didn’t make an immediate appearance. That was odd. He usually liked to greet me in hopes of obtaining a late-night snack. I spotted him hiding under a chair. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” I asked, and tried to coax him out. The only time Mr. Katz acted like this was when strangers were around or when he had done something he knew I would be unhappy about. A horrible thought entered my mind. “You did use your litter box tonight, didn’t you?” Mr. Katz wasn’t owning up to anything, but he also wasn’t coming out from under the chair. Maybe Friskies would be more persuasive.

      I got up and noticed my cell phone on the coffee table. Well, at least that mystery was solved. I stepped into the narrow kitchen and immediately saw the source of Mr. Katz’s agitation. One of the glasses I had left by the sink lay shattered on the floor.

      “Is that all?” I bent down to collect the pieces. “How the hell did you knock it so far off the counter anyway…ouch! Damn it!” I sucked the blood that was dribbling down my finger. For someone who had virtually built a reputation on writing graphic violence, I really was a major wimp. I put my finger under the faucet and watched as the pink water flowed down the drain. Something was off. Why was I having a déjà vu feeling? I shivered a little as a cold wind blew in from the window in front of me. It was half open. Had I left it like that?

      I heard the floor make a little creak. Someone was watching me. I slowly lowered my hand into the sink and clasped the dirty knife I had left there. I drew a quick breath and whipped around, knife outstretched, silently praying that whoever was behind me wasn’t holding a more ominous weapon.

      But it was only Mr. Katz.

      From where I was standing I could see all of the kitchen and most of the living room. Everything was in its place. My gaze rested on the diamond studs I had carelessly left on the counter that divided the two rooms. The overhead light was hitting them in a manner that caused them to cast a faint rainbow on the cream tiles beneath them. They hadn’t been touched. No sign of forced entry, nothing but a window that I had obviously forgotten to close, a broken glass and a cat with a suspiciously guilty look on his face. So why couldn’t I bring myself to lower the knife? And why did this feel so damn familiar? It was like I had seen this scene played out in a movie or read about it in a…

      I sucked in more air as the vision of my fingers typing the words flashed before me. I had written this scene. It was from Sex, Drugs and Murder. But that was insane. Besides, it wasn’t as if Mr. Katz had never broken anything before. I had been forced to replace the vase on the coffee table three times in the last two years. If it hadn’t been for the phone calls…and the note. Oh God, I had almost forgotten about the note. Could that be connected to this? I spread my feet a little farther apart for better balance. This must be what it’s like to have a bad acid trip. You know that you’ve been given something that messes with your head, so you become unsure if your instincts can be trusted or if they are just the result of drug-induced paranoia.

      The sting from the slice in my finger distracted me for a moment and I looked at the blood that had trickled onto the knife’s handle. It was then that Mr. Katz made his move. In one fluid motion he leaped onto the counter, missing a coffee cup by half a millimeter. He proceeded to rub against my arm in a pathetic attempt to redeem himself as I tried to recover from the near heart attack his sudden activity had brought on.

      I jerked away from the menacing fur ball and steadied the cup that was on the verge of suffering the same fate as the broken glassware. Culprit identified and caught.

      “Stupid cat,” I said, and threw the knife back into the sink. “No Friskies for you.”

      CHAPTER 4

      “There was no such thing as a slow news day. You could always count on the weirdos of the world to keep things interesting.”

      —Sex, Drugs and Murder

      Just trying to follow the little black words printed in the next morning’s Chronicle seemed to upset my equilibrium. I searched for some mention of what had happened in my neighborhood the night before, but as I expected, whatever took place had happened long after that edition would have gone to press. I might have found something out on the local news, but then I would have had to get up before nine. There was an interesting little article about Alex Tolsky. His daughter, Shannon, was convinced that her father was not capable of suicide and she was trying to lobby the LAPD to reopen the case, but to little avail. Even her mother believed it was a suicide, citing their impending divorce as the motive. That, coupled with the fact that Tolsky had a drinking problem and suffered from clinical depression, was enough to satisfy the police. Still, Shannon Tolsky was adamant.

      A little voice inside me told me she was right. I reached past Mr. Katz for the scissors. Molded correctly, it could be a good premise for a future novel.

      My eyes traveled to the kitchen window. It was open just a crack—exactly the way I had left it before going to sleep. Of course it was—why would it be otherwise? I had obviously forgotten to close it before going out with Marcus. Still, I would have sworn… I gently massaged my temples. My head hurt enough as it was,

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